Last month the Mobile Money for the Unbanked group at GSMA released their state of the industry report for 2013. They’ve been collecting data on mobile money since 2010 so a more complete picture of changes in the industry is starting to emerge, and this year for the first time they’ve added other mobile money products like insurance, credit and savings, which make up a growing piece of the mobile money pie. Though we try to keep up on what’s new in mobile money, some of the findings surprised us.

4) Competition in mobile money markets is on the rise. How many countries have two or more mobile money services?a) 12b) 32c) 52d) 82

5) There are 9 countries with more registered mobile money accounts than traditional bank accounts. Where are they located?a) All in Sub-Saharan Africab) About equally distributed between Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asiac) About equally distributed between Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America

6) Mobile financial services other than payments, which include insurance, credit and savings, now make up what percentage of the total number of mobile money services?a) 6%b) 26%c) 56%d) 86%

7) The rate of growth of new services is slowing down, likely because most developing markets already have one or more mobile money services. One region is still growing very rapidly, which is it?a) Sub-Saharan Africab) Asia-Pacificc) Latin Americad) US/Canadae) Europe

8) What is the most popular mobile money product in terms of number of transactions?a) Airtime top-up (buying minutes for a cell phone)b) Domestic person-to-person transactionsc) Bill paymentsd) Salaries and government-to-person paymentse) Merchant paymentsf) International remittance transactions

9) What is the most popular mobile money product in terms of value?a) Airtime top-up (buying minutes for a cell phone)b) Domestic person-to-person transactionsc) Bill paymentsd) Salaries and government-to-person paymentse) Merchant paymentsf) International remittance transactions

10) An operator must meet which of the following conditions to be considered a mobile money service?a) The service offers at least one of the following services: P2P transfer, bill payment, bulk payment, merchant payment, or international remittance.b) The service relies heavily on a network of transactional points outside bank branches that make the service accessible to unbanked and underbanked people.c) Customers are able to use the service without having been previously banked.d) The service offers an interface for initiating transactions for agents and/or customers that is available on basic mobile devices.e) All of the above

ANSWERS1 d. There were 219 mobile money services operating at the end of 2013.2 d. 84 countries have mobile money services. That’s about 40 percent of all the countries in the world. Here’s a nice map of those countries, courtesy of the GSMA report:

3 a. 52% of mobile money services are in Sub-Saharan Africa.4 c. 52 markets have 2 or more services competing for mobile money clients.5 a. The countries with more mobile money account holders than traditional bank account holders are all in Sub-Saharan Africa. They are: Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Kenya, Madagascar, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.6 c. 56% of mobile money services offered are for insurance, credit or savings.7 c. New mobile money services in Latin America grew 53% year-on-year.8 a. Airtime top-ups make up 75% of number of transactions, but only 9% of value.9 b. Domestic P2P transfer makes up 68% of the value of global transactions, and 18% of the number of transactions.10 e. All of the above

RESULTSIf you scored:7-10: Congratulations, you’re an expert! Did you write this report? Would you like to blog for FAI?4-6: Not bad. Brush up your knowledge with this nice summary from CGAP.0-3: Better luck next time. Here’s the entire GSMA report for you to download. There will be a quiz.